


we bloom until we ache

by tricksterity



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, High School, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Not Beta Read, Polyamory, Scars, Season/Series 01, This is a wild ride, episode s01e07, teenage victor and teenage jim!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 06:45:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19740370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricksterity/pseuds/tricksterity
Summary: “Victor Zsasz is the man who killed my father,” Jim said. “He’s also my ex-boyfriend.”That really threw Harvey for a loop, because he just blinked for a few moments before retrieving his flask and taking a long swig.“You… dated Victor Zsasz?”Jim nodded. “For five years. He was… all I had, other than my father. I was in love with him.”(aka: when Victor Zsasz makes his dramatic entrance at the GCPD looking for Jim Gordon, things go a little differently.)





	we bloom until we ache

**Author's Note:**

> I should be writing my Masters thesis and instead I've spent three days straight writing this. Haven't beta read it because I just need this out there. Also AO3 is seriously lacking Jim/Victor content, so I'm here to deliver.
> 
>  **IMPORTANT:** there are mentions of suicide and suicide attempts in this. If this triggers you, please read with caution.

* * *

Jim wasn’t entirely sure what expression Captain Essen saw, but it probably accurately represented how it felt like his heart stopped and all the blood rushed out of his face. Horror? Fear? Apprehension? Maybe all of the above.

That taunting, musical voice echoing his name through the precinct was hauntingly familiar. Something that Jim had hoped to God he wouldn’t hear ever again when he made his way back to Gotham, even though he knew such a thing would be nigh impossible. A fool’s hope, perhaps.

“Jim…” Essen murmured, clearly recognising the voice too, albeit for a different reason.

“It’s okay,” he replied. He threw the file in his hand onto her desk perhaps a little harder than the situation warranted. Then he stepped out of her office and stared straight into the dark, wide eyes of Victor Zsasz.

The assassin was standing atop one of the detectives’ desks, in a dark fitted suit with suspenders hanging about his hips and thighs. Beneath the suit, a black leather holster wrapped about both his shoulders, visible only because Jim knew that it was there. And the most annoying thing about it was that Zsasz looked _good_.

“Hi, Jim,” Zsasz waved, smiling a little. “Relax, I’m supposed to take you in alive. Don Falcone wants to talk.”

And that just – made Jim’s blood boil. Any veneer of calm and restraint he’d managed to cobble together in the few moments that he’d had in Essen’s office disappeared into the ether, replaced with only fury, and the sharp sting of betrayal in his gut.

“So you’re working for _him_ now, Victor?” Jim all but growled. Essen’s gaze whipped over to him from the corner of his vision, but he ignored her searching look. In response to Jim’s words, something in Victor’s eyes flashed too quickly for him to figure out before it was gone again.

“I work for anyone who pays me well enough,” Victor drawled, and Jim barked out a laugh.

“Your loyalties always were changeable, weren’t they?”

And, wow, practically an entire theatre of emotions played over Victor’s face at those biting words before he could get his expression under control. That was a first. Victor’s girls, wrapped in small amounts of black leather, tightened their grips on their weaponry in response to the tensing of Victor’s shoulders.

“Are you coming or not, Jim?” Victor asked, moving a hand from his lapel to hold out in a welcoming gesture. “I promise you will remain unharmed. You have my word.”

It made Jim want to laugh _oh, because your word means so much,_ and he only swallowed the words at the last second. Victor Zsasz may have been a liar, and a murderer, and a man who carved tally marks into his own skin for every human life he snuffed out, but he wasn’t a man who went back on his word once he gave it.

Unfortunately, it was something Jim was far too familiar with.

He ignored the warning from Captain Essen as he turned to walk down into the bullpen, keeping his eyes fixed on Victor’s at all times. Maybe it was stupid of him to trust him, after everything the other man had done to him, and perhaps that was the exact reason why Falcone sent Victor Zsasz instead of anyone else. Maybe Victor had been counting on Jim’s weakness to get him brought in nicely and without bloodshed (though everyone knew he loved such a thing).

But with every step that Jim took across the hushed room, with every step that got him closer to Victor, the more he could see something wavering in Victor’s gaze. He trusted his instincts, and knew that he was making the right decision.

Because maybe Victor Zsasz was still his weakness, but the opposite was true as well.

When he got close enough, the assassin jumped down from the desk so they stood only inches apart, Victor getting a little more height on Jim than he normally would due to the thick soles of his boots.

Without a word, Jim pulled up the cuffs of his shirt and jacket, then turned his hands palm up, and held his wrists out for restraints.

He didn’t miss the way Victor’s eyes were immediately drawn to the thick, roping scar that worked it’s way up Jim’s right forearm and under his sleeve. A scar deep enough that upon seeing it anyone would know what the single-minded intent behind it was.

“What?” Jim asked. “I thought you liked seeing scars of your own making, Victor.”

Something broke in Victor’s eyes then, visible just enough that it brought a smug, satisfied smile to Jim’s face. The assassin growled without looking up, and simply jerked Jim around until he was facing away from Victor, his hands being zip-tied behind his own back. A hard shove between his shoulders got him moving, and he walked out the precinct door shadowed by Zsasz, ignoring the Captain calling his name.

He was shoved into the back of a car, Zsasz climbing in next to him, and then they were off.

The silence was deafening, and Jim stared straight ahead, past the passenger seat headrest and the girl sitting there with hair standing up in a particularly impressive mohawk. Zsasz was silent next to him, and nearly all sounds of the city around them were blocked off by the car and thick (presumably bulletproof) windows.

Victor whispered Jim’s name at the same time a fingertip touched the still-visible scar on his wrist, and Jim’s whole body flinched away from it.

“Don’t touch me,” he spat. “You lost that right a long time ago.”

There was silence in response. Victor had never been one to speak needlessly, even with all of his dry remarks and sassy responses. He’d never been the kind of person to speak – or act – without thinking them through.

Which is what hurt Jim the most.

“Would it help if I said that I was sorry?” came Victor’s voice. Jim wanted to break apart the zip tie and throttle the assassin until he passed out.

“You’re ten years too late for that, but I _appreciate_ it.”

The sarcasm was evident in Jim’s biting response.

The ride continued in thick silence, with two girls up the front and Jim and Victor squeezed together in the back. It was uncomfortable sitting in such a small space with his hands trapped behind him, but like hell was Jim going to do anything that showed his discomfort with the situation. The car passed the inner city limits and moved further into the suburbs, and Jim finally began to think that maybe all of this had been a bad idea. What had he been thinking, going with Zsasz, who threatened him in the middle of the fucking precinct?

Well, it wasn’t likely any of the cops there would’ve helped Jim anyway, but he at least could’ve held up a token resistance instead of just walking right up to Victor and letting himself get cuffed.

Though, the look on Victor’s face when he’d seen Jim’s scar had almost made it worth it.

Within ten minutes they pulled up outside the Falcone mansion, armed guards flanking the front door, and Jim reluctantly allowed Victor to help pull him out of the car. He was about to turn his back on the assassin and storm into the building when a gloved hand caught his bicep, stopping him in his tracks.

“Why did you come with me, Jim?” Victor asked, voice pitched low enough that no one could hear them.

Jim grit his teeth and turned so he could look Victor in the eye.

“Because you promised that I would get out of this _talk_ unharmed,” he spat. “And it’s the least you could do to repay me after you broke my heart.”

Jim yanked himself out of Victor’s grip, and headed to the stairs.

* * *

_Seventeen Years Earlier  
_ _(Age 15)_

James Gordon was lucky enough to be a perfectly normal teenager in the view of Angeles Public High School. His father didn’t believe in private education, hence why Jim had been thrown into the clutches of teenagers and their cliques, which were far more varied in a public school located smack between the Narrows and the inner city centre.

Jim didn’t belong in any sort of clique, and after his first year had settled in nicely. He had some friends, no one he was particularly close to, though he got along well with the other members of the basketball team that he’d joined. He wasn’t popular, but was liked enough that when he got between bullies and the bullied, they would back down instead of jumping Jim too.

Which is why he was so interested in Victor Zsasz.

He’d first been aware of the other teenage boy when the sound of someone being thrown into the lockers rattled and echoed down the hallway. Jim, like all the other teenagers, turned around to see what was happening. One of the most notorious bullies had shoved a kid in a black hoodie, hands fisted into the fabric, and from Jim’s position he couldn’t see the kid’s face.

That didn’t matter much, though, because within a second the boy held up against the locker threw a mean enough punch that Zach, the bully, landed hard on the linoleum floor, and smacked the back of his head against it. The whole hallway made a noise at that, inching closer to see what would unfold. One of Zach’s friends – Kevin? – made to defend his friend, but the black hoodie kid dodged out of the way and sent a knee into Kevin’s stomach. The motion caused the hoodie to slip from his head, and – ah.

Victor Zsasz.

Recently transferred to their school for supposedly getting expelled. There were rumours going around that he had cancer, since there wasn’t a single hair on his head or on his brows. Jim had never gotten close enough to see if he had eyelashes, but he could definitely see the dark anger in Victor’s eyes as he glared down at Zach and Kevin. Their third friend was smart enough to not try anything.

“I don’t have cancer, but if I did, that would make you even more of an asshole,” Victor said to the boys on the floor, voice deeper than expected but loud enough that everyone could hear him. “It’s called alopecia, look it up.”

And with that, Victor Zsasz was gone.

It was an incident that stuck in Jim’s head for weeks afterwards. The easy way Victor had taken down the other kids, the way he didn’t brag about it afterwards or swaggered about like he was the new top dog; it was nice to see a teenager in their school without ego.

So when Victor was assigned to be his lab partner the next year, Jim met the other boy with a smile.

* * *

_Sixteen Years Earlier  
_ _(Age 16)_

“Victor, what did you do this time?” Jim sighed.

His best friend never looked sheepish after he’d gotten caught doing something stupid, but Victor always seemed to have a triumphant gleam in his eye whether he’d gotten away with it or not. And Jim could pick it out from a great distance.

“Nothing,” Victor shrugged. “…Much.”

“It’s always nothing much with you. Even the thumbtack incident.”

“Listen, she was a bitch and deserved what was coming to her, Jimbo.”

Jim sighed and put down his economics textbook, shifting a little as Victor all but collapsed on the seat next to Jim in the school library. They usually had study periods together, but it wasn’t like Victor to be fifteen minutes late coming to one unless he’d warned Jim beforehand.

“I know,” Jim sighed, “but I still think you could’ve gone about it better than hiding thumbtacks in a teacher’s chair.”

“It made you laugh, so you can’t talk,” Victor responded with a pointed finger in Jim’s face. He resisted the urge to lean over and bite it, just to be annoying. Knowing Victor, he’d probably like that.

“But what did you do this time?”

“It really was nothing, Jim,” sighed Victor, getting comfortable by leaning pretty much his whole body weight onto Jim, “I just superglued some drawers shut. I didn’t know they held anything important. Shouldn’t keep shit like that where students can get them.”

“You’re an asshole,” Jim groaned, knowing instinctively that Victor was talking about their English teacher and the drawer _everyone_ knew he kept his blood sugar monitor in. “He could’ve died.”

Victor sniffed.

“I’d be doing the school a favour, then.”

Jim grumbled and shoved Victor off the sofa, enjoying how he flailed a little before he managed to catch himself only an inch from landing on the hard wood. Victor rolled his eyes and just got back into his previous position, this time getting more insistently in Jim’s space.

“You know you love me,” Victor sing-songed, batting his eyelashes. Not that he had any, but the effect was the same – it made him look like an idiot. Jim just groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“God knows why,” he groused. Victor’s lips pressed against his cheek for a split second, and then he was on his feet, laughing and dashing out of the library as Jim gave chase, trying to hide the violent blush that threatened to overtake his face.

* * *

_Fifteen Years Earlier  
_ _(Age 17)_

Jim continued to mash his face into his pillow and ignored the insistent rapping at his bedroom window. Never mind that he was on the second floor, and never mind that the window was closed (but not locked), the person out there would find a way in. In only took a few minutes for the latch to be jimmied open, and for Victor to slide his way in smoothly and with nary a sound.

Jim didn’t look up when soft footsteps came closer, or when a warm body climbed onto the bed behind him (almost on top of him), or when an arm wrapped about his waist and a sharp chin dug into his shoulder. Jim pointedly ignored Victor pressing kisses to the nape of his neck, even though he wanted to just turn around and bury himself into his boyfriend’s arms.

Because said boyfriend was who he was annoyed with.

“Jim, you can’t ignore me all night,” Victor murmured into his skin.

“Watch me,” Jim bit out in response, burying his face deeper into the pillow. They were both as stubborn as each other, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, and Jim wasn’t going to let something as pesky as _love_ stop him once he set his mind to something – namely, ignoring Victor Zsasz.

His boyfriend knew this all too well, so he simply settled down on the bed, soft breath ruffling the short hairs at the back of Jim’s head, and waited.

An hour probably passed before Jim’s arm went completely numb under Victor’s body weight, and his stomach growled from the lack of food. The sun had been setting by the time his window had been opened, and it was likely that Jim’s usual dinner time had long since passed. The noise roused Victor, from where he’d been patiently waiting like a bird of prey, and he managed to slip a thigh in between Jim’s legs to pin him in place even more.

“Are you going to let me talk, now?” Victor asked, voice quiet in the silence of Jim’s room.

“I never said you couldn’t.”

Victor huffed, and forcibly grabbed Jim, using his surprising strength to roll him over on the bed so that Jim had no choice but to look up at his boyfriend, hovering above him with a worried furrow to his brow. Jim wanted to wipe it away, but also felt satisfaction at its appearance.

“You know I didn’t want this to happen,” Victor sighed. “I wouldn’t… _abandon_ you on purpose.”

“No, you just ignored all my warnings about being an idiot until you got expelled. Again. How many schools is that now? Four? Five?”

Victor snorted. “Three. You’re being dramatic.”

“Me?” Jim almost burst out in laughter. “The dramatic one? Pot calling the kettle black if I’ve ever heard it. You’re the most dramatic, theatrical son of a bitch I’ve ever met, Zsasz.”

A smirk took over Victor’s face, accompanying the mischievous twinkle in his eye, the expression that always sent something swooping through Jim’s gut. An equal mix of apprehension and lust, because that expression never meant anything good for Jim.

“You’re mad enough for surnames, Gordon?” drawled Victor, lowering his bodyweight onto Jim, settling between his legs. “Seems like you’re angling for hate sex. I’m not opposed.”

“This isn’t the time, Vic. You can’t just… distract me with sex like I’m going to forget about this whole situation. Can you just _listen_ to me for once instead of changing the subject?”

“I always listen to you.”

“No, you _hear_ me when I talk to you,” Jim huffed. “You don’t listen to me all that often. Maybe you should try that now: get off me.”

“Get you off?” his boyfriend asked hopefully. Jim growled and shoved Victor with all his strength, clambering over his boyfriend to stand on shaky legs, immediately making his way to his bedroom door. Within seconds Victor had caught up and grabbed his wrist, gently pulling Jim back around to face him.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I’ll listen. Scout’s honour.”

Jim smacked Victor across the chest, but didn’t wrench his hand out of his boyfriend’s grip.

“I kept telling you that if you kept doing shit like that, you were going to get expelled. And you did. And now I’ve got a year of school left without you, and I barely see you enough as it is, because you’re always off doing weird shit that you refuse to tell me about, and I feel like you don’t care about me as much as I care about you because clearly I’m not important enough for you to actually try to spend time with me!”

The confession launched it’s way out of Jim like the chest-burster in _Alien_ , and he refused to meet Victor’s gaze after it. It hadn’t exactly been his intention to spill all his insecurities like that to his boyfriend and best friend. The person that he loved with his whole heart and was practically the axis that his world orbited about. But Jim was emotional, and angry, and that usually led to him doing shit he didn’t intend to.

Silence reigned for a few moments, before Victor reeled Jim in and wrapped him in a hug. Their height difference was just pronounced enough that Jim could comfortably rest his forehead on Victor’s shoulder without a crick in his neck, and he held back the sob that threatened to break out of his lips.

“You know that I love you, Jim. You’re the only good thing I’ve got going on in my life,” Victor murmured into his hair. “I don’t… want you to feel like that. It’s not my intention. But we live very different lives. Your father’s about to be the District Attorney, and I’m an orphan kid living in the Narrows.”

Jim pulled himself out of Victor’s grip and levelled a death glare at his boyfriend.

“If you’re about to break up with me because of that, I swear to god Victor Zsasz, I will kill you.”

Victor snorted and rolled his eyes.

“As if you could,” he retorted. “I’m not breaking up with you Jim, relax.”

“Then what are you saying?” he asked, and Victor sighed like Jim wasn’t able to see some obvious solution staring them right in the face.

“I’m saying that me getting kicked out of high school was inevitable, and we both shouldn’t be surprised that it happened, but you don’t need to _worry_. I love you, and until you kick me out of your life I won’t be going anywhere.”

Jim rolled his eyes. “So what are you saying? You’re gonna come pick me up from class every day on a motorbike and leather jacket?”

“Why, you want me to? I can do that if it’s some secret kink you’ve got, Jimmy, you know I’m happy to accommodate.”

“You’re an asshole.”

Victor smiled and kissed him.

“But you love me anyway.”

Jim sighed but pulled Victor in by the belt loops, and murmured his reply onto Victor’s lips.

“Yeah, I do.”

* * *

_Fourteen Years Earlier  
_ _(Age 18)_

Pressed up against his front door in view of all the neighbours, Jim tried very hard not to let out a whine as Victor pressed kisses down his neck. Apparently it didn’t matter that Jim was still in his graduation gown, the stupid hat having already fallen to the floor, because Jim was very quickly being driven insane by Victor’s lips, and teeth, and hands.

“Vic- not out here-“ he gasped, broad hands tightening on his waist. He gripped the lapels of his boyfriend’s leather jacket, trying to pull him off just long enough for Jim to actually get the key into the lock so they could get inside, but Victor was stubbornly not moving back.

He’d actually come to pick Jim up from his graduation on a motorbike in a leather jacket. And it was really hot. And Jim’s father had laughed at him and said that he’d see him at home later.

“What, you don’t want anyone to see your graduation present?” Victor murmured into Jim’s skin, sending shivers down his spine.

“No, Victor, I don’t particularly want anyone to see me getting a blowjob in my damn graduation gown!”

This made Victor pause, and he pulled back just enough to make eye contact with Jim. His eyes were dark with blown pupils, and Jim was almost convinced by that look alone to just let Victor have his way with him there on the front porch.

“Who said anything about a blowjob?” Victor asked, voice pitched low and predatory. “I’m gonna fuck you till you scream, baby.”

Jim’s breath caught in his chest the way it always did when Victor got like this. He quickly pushed his boyfriend away, just long enough to turn around and unlock the front door with shaking hands, and then dragged Victor by a hand on his jacket.

“You’d better make good on that promise, Zsasz,” he retorted, slamming the door shut behind them. Victor grinned and navigated them both through Jim’s house with ease, before pushing Jim down onto his bed.

“Have I ever made a promise I didn’t keep?” Victor asked, nosing about Jim’s jawline.

“Not yet,” Jim breathed, intertwining their fingers. “So get on with it.”

It was lucky that Jim’s father had to go back to a long shift at work, because he was loud enough that it was likely that the neighbours heard him. He shuddered and whined and twitched through the aftershocks, throat scratchy and muscles shaking, as Victor came inside him.

After cleaning them up, Victor manoeuvred Jim until he was curled up on Victor’s chest, his boyfriend’s fingers running up and down his spine.

Once Jim caught his breath, he frowned and gently touched two small, straight scars side-by-side on Victor’s forearm.

“How’d you get these?” he asked. The scars looked pretty fresh, maybe only a few days old, standing out starkly against Victor’s otherwise smooth skin.

Victor shifted so more of Jim’s weight was pressed against him.

“Work accident,” he replied. “Don’t worry about it, Jim, it didn’t hurt.”

Jim leaned over and pressed a kiss to them anyway, followed up by a kiss to Victor’s lips.

* * *

_Thirteen Years Earlier  
_ _(Age 19)_

Halfway through the first year of his law degree, Jim realized that it just wasn’t for him. His father may have been Gotham’s DA, but he had to admit that Victor had been right… Jim wasn’t cut out for the courtroom.

So plan B was joining the Army, and as per usual Jim put in 110% and did all his research on the application process and recruitment training. He started putting in hours at the gym to get his physical requirements up, and sometimes Victor would join him on the workout or just watch him from the edge of the room with a smirk. Jim ran through practice ASVAB tests and looked up the options of what pathways within the military would suit him.

He even managed to drag Victor to a firing range for practice.

“Why are we going to a gun range when they teach you all of that in the Army anyway?” Victor drawled as they got buzzed into the range.

“Because I want to be prepared,” Jim replied, for the tenth time. “And also because I could end up hating guns and then I’d be useless.”

Victor’s nose scrunched up at the thought.

“Then use a knife.”

“They’re not gonna let me run around an active battlefield with a _knife_ , Vic.”

“Bow and arrow? Crossbow? Spear? Mace? Ooh, you can be the first soldier in two hundred years to use a sword in combat!”

Jim turned to look at Victor with a raised brow, and saw that his boyfriend looked _way_ too excited at that prospect. He rolled his eyes and signed their names in at the desk, and then followed the signs into the back, Victor still continuing on behind him. It was frankly a little worrying how many types of weapons that Victor could list off that weren’t guns.

The safety officer in the gun room was looking supremely bored, sitting behind a desk with his feet up, reading a magazine. He looked up when the two of them entered the room, and just stared when Victor waved from next to Jim.

“You two new here?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Jim replied. He had to keep a hand firmly around Victor’s wrist to stop him from just wandering through the room, poking at all the weaponry they had on hand. The racks were full up with small arms, from handguns to bolt-action rifles and semi-automatics. They were all chained up and could be opened by a key that Jim assumed was the one on the desk next to the safety officer’s pile of magazines.

“Ever fired a gun before?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Jim said. The safety officer looked over to Victor, who wasn’t paying much attention. “He’s just here to observe.”

Victor stuck his bottom lip out in a pout.

“You’re bringing me to a gun range and aren’t letting me play? That’s mean, Jim. I’m familiar with guns.”

“What type have you handled before?” the safety officer asked in the same monotone voice, like he would rather be sleeping than at his job. Victor shrugged.

“All of them,” he replied. “I work private security.”

If private security meant being a bank guard in the Narrows, sure. Jim wasn’t gonna spoil Victor’s fun though, so he didn’t correct his boyfriend, and just smiled tightly. The safety officer sighed and reluctantly got up from his chair and ambled over to the guns.

“I’ll start you out on a 19mm handgun then, just until you get used to it,” he said, unlocking the handguns. “This is a SIG Sauer M11, one of the most common pistols you’ll see. Ten round magazines, semi-automatic, easy to use.”

“You should give him an M4 Carbine too,” Victor suddenly piped up, “he’s planning on joining the Army. That’s their choice of rifle, right?”

Both Jim and the safety officer looked at each other for a few moments.

“Yeah,” said the safety officer. “But I wouldn’t recommend one for a first-timer. Better to stick to a single-shot rifle for beginners. What’s your name, kid?”

“Jim.”

“Okay Jim, few basic safety rules while you’re out on the range,” the safety officer said, still not offering up his own name. “You put earmuffs on once you leave this room. You fire once the range leader says you can, and hold your fire when they tell you to stop. Always keep the safety on, and point your gun at the ground at all times. Only turn the safety off when you’re aimed at the target. Clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Okay, I’m gonna show you how to operate this model and where we keep the ammo for it. Once you can reload, you can head out for a test run. If you’ve got any questions you can ask the range leader, but it looks like your friend can probably help out too,” he said, jerking a chin over at Victor. Who was crouched down and peering at some of the rifles with interest. At the attention, he grinned and gave them a thumbs up.

A few minutes later, Jim and Victor had earmuffs around their necks, and Jim was holding a gun in one hand and a box of ammunition in the other. It was terrifying, and a little invigorating – knowing that just one wrong move could potentially end someone’s life, all from a little thing he held in his hand. It was a lot of power, and a lot of responsibility.

Victor pulls his earmuffs on and strolled onto the range like it was a regular thing for him (and maybe it was at his job) and leaned against the wall at the end of one of the empty lanes. The range leader at the end gave Jim a thumbs up, and there was only one other person shooting. Other than the four of them, it was empty.

The range was split into twenty and thirty yard targets, and Jim had been told that the twenty yard would be best to start on with a pistol and no scope. Fresh paper targets had been put out, the silhouette of a figure below a bullseye. Jim didn’t really have any idea on how to stand, so he looked over to Victor with a pleading look.

His boyfriend smiled and strolled over to him, putting his hands on Jim’s hips. This close, even with the earmuffs, he could hear Victor’s instructions.

“Move your right foot back about a step to a forty-five degree angle,” Victor said, using his grip on Jim to help align his stance. “Bend your knees a little, and push your butt out slightly.”

At this, Jim turned to him with raised eyebrows.

“I’m not kidding, Jim, you need to be able to balance yourself against recoil. Now push your butt out – not that far, just a little. You want to settle into the stance and loosen up a little. There we go. Okay, remember trigger safety. Right hand on the grip, finger parallel to the trigger, left hand wrapping beneath and around to stabilise. Perfect. You’re a natural, Jim,” Victor instructed, pressed up close behind him. Jim tried to ignore the flush that came to his cheeks at Victor’s praise.

“Okay, relax into it. Hold your arms out as straight as possible, line your dominant eye up to the sight and the little notch on the end of the handgun. Don’t close your other eye, this isn’t a movie,” Victor laughed as Jim did it automatically. “Keeping both eyes open give you better peripheral vision in combat. So, take a few deep breaths, don’t forget about the recoil, flick of the safety, and fire at will. You’ve got ten rounds, remember, so adjust your aim between them if you need to. And don’t hold your breath when you fire.”

The heat at Jim’s back disappeared as Victor retreated to lean against the wall. It was a little nerve wracking firing a gun for the first time, especially in front of his boyfriend who clearly knew what he was doing, but Victor had seen Jim at his worst.

And by that, he meant that Jim had gotten so drunk at a house party one night that after Jim had given Victor a blowjob he’d immediately turned to the side and vomited off the side of the bed, then passed out. So after that, nothing was really all that embarrassing.

Jim took a deep breath and did his best to steady his aim. His only goal was to at least hit the paper target, and then try and work inwards to the silhouette – he wasn’t going to delude himself into thinking he was gonna get a headshot with a pistol on the first try.

On the exhale, Jim fired.

The recoil was a little more than he’d expected, but it didn’t throw off his aim too badly. He hit the white of the target only two inches from the silhouette, which was pretty damn good for a first try. Jim rolled his shoulders and readjusted, then fired again. He’d moved his aim too far and this time caught the opposite side of the paper. Pursing his lips, Jim tried again.

Edge of the silhouette.

By the time Jim emptied the clip, he was hitting the silhouette nearly every time, though it was a little random and not at all clustered. Still, not bad for a first attempt. His blood was singing, and it was invigorating to fire a weapon, to know how much _power_ he had in doing so. There was nothing stopping him from turning around and just… shooting everyone in the room, other than his own decisions and morals.

Which made him side-eye the other guy at the range a little warily.

Jim flicked on the safety and turned around to look at Victor, who was peering at him with that intense look he sometimes got, and it made Jim blush a little at all the attention.

“How was I?” he asked.

“Pretty good for a beginner,” Victor said, approaching him until he was up in Jim’s space. “And you look hot with a gun.”

Jim rolled his eyes and elbowed his boyfriend in the ribs.

“Shut up and help me reload,” he sighed. Victor’s movements were quick and sure when he showed Jim how to load the bullets from the ammo box into the magazine, something Jim was envious of as it was a little trickier than it looked when he attempted it.

After a few more rounds, Jim was hitting the silhouette nearly every time, and the gun felt somewhat natural in his hand. It didn’t scare him off, and it didn’t make him anxious, which would’ve been ending his military career before he’d even started it.

He went to return the pistol and the remaining ammo, and Victor snuck in a kiss when nobody at the range was watching. Jim swapped out the handgun for a bolt-action rifle, a ‘nice’ .22 caliber according to the safety officer, and a stand to go with it. Once the safety officer ran over the basics of the rifle and reloading, Jim went back out onto the range, with Victor setting him up in one of the lanes. They started with Jim lying on his stomach and the rifle propped up on the stand until he got the hang of shooting and re-loading, and then moved onto standing.

The recoil was minimal, and the scope definitely helped Jim aim a lot more accurately than he did with the handgun. By the time they finished at the range and signed out, Jim felt confident in his decision to join the Army.

“You handled it well,” Victor praised as they arrived at his flat. It was freakishly clean, because Victor had always been like that, with minimal decorations. “The Army will be lucky to have you, even if it means I don’t see you for far too long.”

Yeah – the only downside about the whole thing.

“Well…” Jim murmured, back-hugging Victor. “Maybe I don’t have to join up _just_ yet. Maybe I want the shitty retail experience, who knows? Or I could be a cute barista and you could be the mysterious bad boy who comes in and orders the same thing every day.”

Victor laughed and spun around to press a kiss to Jim’s forehead.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I think you’ve been watching too many bad movies.”

* * *

_Twelve Years Earlier  
_ _(Age 20)_

In the end, Jim had decided to try out working a regular job in Gotham for a year. Joining the Army was a big decision that he wouldn’t be able to get out of easily should he change his mind once he swore himself to the country. He also didn’t quite feeling like leaving Victor for months at a time just yet.

So he worked as a barista near Gotham U for a few months, learning how to perfect a polite poker-face while inwardly viciously murdering the asshole customer going off at him in the middle of the store. At least the stories entertained Victor, who more than often was out on jobs now that he’d _actually_ progressed to private security - he was being contracted out around the city, and Jim was overwhelmingly proud of his boyfriend. Even if said boyfriend did have coworkers who dared Victor to turn the twin scars on his bicep into a whole set of tally marks ‘for shits and giggles’.

Victor _insisted_ that it hadn’t hurt, and he did have a freakishly high pain tolerance, but that didn’t stop Jim from kissing it the moment he’d seen the fresh scars.

Yeah, his boyfriend was weird as hell, but Jim loved him. Was trying to convince Victor to move in with him too, even though his apartment was pretty much a shithole since Jim was insisting that he pay rent himself instead of letting his father cover the costs with his DA salary. Victor didn’t want to on account for his hectic schedule that had him nocturnal every few weeks, and that he’d just fuck up Jim’s routine.

“That, and when you’re tired you’re cranky,” Victor had sighed, pulling Jim down onto the sofa. “Imagine feeling like that all the time because I get home at 3a.m. every night? You’d wake up when I get home, and then you’d wake up when I shower because the pipes are rattly as hell, and then you’d wake up when I get into bed with you. And then you’d have to be up a few hours later to open up the shop.”

Jim had quit the barista job after one too many asshole customers tried to throw their drink at him and had landed a position at a bookstore, in charge of opening at seven a.m. every weekday morning. Which was ridiculously early for a bookstore in Jim’s opinion, but they paid him an actual living wage as opposed to the shit relying-on-tips pay at the café, and so he stayed on. But Victor had been right, their schedules conflicted far too much.

So when they had a day off together – even if it was a cold as fuck, near-blizzarding day in the middle of January – they took advantage of it.

On the way to a café (thankfully not the one that Jim used to work at), they stopped into a bank so that Victor could cash in his last work cheque. They were both bundled up in thick layers, coats and gloves, and Jim had even manage to convince Victor to wear a beanie for once. His boyfriend was weird about wearing any sort of headwear, and would always just deadpan respond with _hats mess up my hair_.

Jim was trying very hard to not back-hug Victor in the middle of the bank when gunshots went off, echoing around the grand marble space. People screamed at the noise, but Jim hardly noticed because of how quickly Victor got them behind cover. His heart beat double time as somewhat muffled voices shouted something about this being a robbery, but Jim only had eyes for Victor.

Victor’s intense gaze was focused on something out of Jim’s vision, and his lips were twitching up into a smile. Of all the times to get adrenalin buzzed, of course Victor Zsasz would get excited about a damn bank robbery.

So Jim grabbed his boyfriend’s hand and glared at him.

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t,” he ordered quietly, but Victor just smiled and raised a brow.

“And not get to have any fun?”

Before Jim could reply, Victor slid out of their hiding spot and fucking _waved_ at the masked men. Who all had guns. Which were immediately trained on Victor.

“Hi guys!” he sing-songed. “Whoa, no need to point those at me. Not like I can do anything, right?”

The masked men all exchanged looks of definite confusion.

“Sit back down,” one of them said, probably the leader, with the red mask. The guys in the blue and green masks took a few steps closer to Victor when he didn’t do that, and the guy in the white mask over by the counter was hissing for the bank teller to hurry up with the money.

“Relax,” drawled Victor, looking for all the world unbothered by the guns trained on him. “I just wanted to know what you’re doing here. You sent by someone? Or you sent yourselves?”

Green mask took another step forward.

“And why should we tell you, huh? Why shouldn’t we just kill you?”

Victor pouted dramatically. “I’m only asking a question.”

Red mask growled and strode over to Victor until he was pressing the barrel of his gun directly into the skin of Victor’s forehead. Jim’s heart sunk into his stomach as the other people in the bank gasped at the action.

“You’re trying to figure out if you can negotiate, or get leverage,” Red mask hissed. “Not gonna work, kid. And you aren’t gonna play the hero when you’re dead.”

“So… you’re not working for anyone?”

Jim wanted to facepalm.

“No,” growled out Red. Jim didn’t have to see his boyfriend’s face to know that he was probably grinning madly at them.

“Oh, great, then I don’t feel bad about doing this,” Victor replied. He grabbed the gun and swept red mask’s feet out from under him. Two shots rang out in the bank, and Green and Blue fell to the floor only seconds after Red did, who looked over to them in shock as they clutched their bleeding legs in agony, screaming. The guy in the white mask over by the counter fumbled for his gun, but collapsed when Victor fired off two more shots that hit him centre-mass.

The whole thing couldn’t have taken longer than ten seconds, and it ended with Victor pointing his gun at Red on the floor while he strode over to Green and Blue and kicked their guns, sending them skidding across the polished floor.

There was silence.

“Someone should probably take this opportunity to call the cops,” echoed Victor’s voice. “And maybe an ambulance, too.”

Jim resisted the urge to punch his boyfriend in his stupid face as the security guards finally came over and did their damn jobs. Victor relinquished the gun to one with a wink and a smile, and sauntered over to Jim like nothing out of the ordinary happened.

“Should we get that coffee now?” he asked.

Jim shoved him hard on the shoulders, enough that it sent Victor stumbling back a few steps, and he had the audacity to look _surprised_.

“Don’t you _ever_ do that again,” Jim snarled, pointing a finger right into Victor’s face. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“My job,” was Victor’s amazing response.

“And you’re off the clock, so that was just you taking an unnecessary risk!”

Suddenly Jim’s hands were caught in Victor’s own, and he was dragged forward until there was barely an inch of space between them. His boyfriend was looking at him with very dark, very intense eyes, like Jim wasn’t getting something glaringly obvious.

“My job is to keep you safe,” Victor said firmly. “No matter the cost.”

Jim blinked.

“Those men were an unknown factor with guns and twitchy trigger fingers,” his boyfriend continued, tightening his grip on Jim’s hands. “The one in the green mask was practically itching for a chance to fire off into someone. I wasn’t going to take the chance it could be you when there was something I could do about the situation.”

“And the whole- asking if they were working for someone?” Jim practically stuttered.

Victor shrugged. “I know enough of the players in this town that I could’ve convinced them to go to another bank if they were under orders,” he replied. “Or I could’ve used that leverage to keep you safe.”

Jim stared down his boyfriend for a few tense seconds.

“You mean you were willing to bluff that you worked for Don Falcone or Maroni on the off chance that they decided they wanted to shoot me?”

Victor pursed his lips at that response.

“Well when you put it like that it sounds stupid,” he sighed. Jim tore his hands out of Victor’s grip so he could slap his boyfriend harshly on the shoulder, hard enough that Victor flinched and pouted.

“Because it _was_ stupid!”

“…Maybe,” Victor finally acquiesced. “I don’t know. My brain kind of went Jim, threat, do something about it.”

“Don’t do it again, _please_. I appreciate it, but I don’t want you to get hurt either.”

“Fine,” pouted Victor. “We should get out of here before the cops arrive and want to detain us for like two hours getting our statements.”

“Vic, we are not running from the cops. You got us into this mess, so if we’re going to spend two hours on our day off talking to cops, then that’s what we’re gonna do. Maybe it’ll make you think twice next time before launching yourself into a situation like this.”

The only upside of waiting inside the bank for the cops to arrive was that at least it was warm. After the third person came up to Victor thanking him for doing what he did, he uncomfortably waved everyone off and pouted in a corner. Likely regretting the whole situation, which was exactly what Jim wanted him to do. Idiot.

After fifteen minutes the cops finally arrived – a ridiculous amount of time to wait considering the situation, but also it was Gotham and there was nowhere near a good enough cop-to-crime ratio, so Jim wasn’t really all that surprised. The robbers were de-masked and hauled off into custody or ambulances, and Jim and Victor got separated so that the cops could take their statements. The one who got Victor looked weirdly reluctant to do it.

“So you’re friends with Zsasz, huh?” asked the cop interviewing him. Jim blinked.

“You know him?”

The cop snorted a laugh. “You could say that. We’ve run into him quite a few times. Is he always that… weird?”

Jim looked over to where his boyfriend was standing far too casually, leaning forward with an intense stare that was making the cop interviewing him uncomfortable. It was so _Victor_ that Jim couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “But it keeps things interesting.”

The cop looked at him a little warily.

“He’s dangerous, you know,” he said, and Jim shrugged.

“He has to be, part of his job.”

Most of the time Victor’s contracts were protection detail, he said, usually as part of a team working for some big shot within the city. It wasn’t unusual for important people within Gotham to be threatened on a weekly basis, and most of the time – according to Victor – their heads were so far up their own asses they wouldn’t see those threats until there was a gun right between their eyes. So people like Victor were employed to make sure that those who wished to harm their clients didn’t make it through the front door.

Jim knew that Victor was dangerous – he’d been personally trained to be able to take down any kind of threat, and was prepared for anything. It terrified him sometimes that Victor would be going up against something or someone he couldn’t take down, but in the few years since Victor had been privately contracted, he hadn’t been majorly hurt yet. It was just a testament to how skilled and dedicated that Jim’s boyfriend was, and it was nice that even the cops seemed to see that too. Even if they did think Victor was weird.

Which… he was. He was totally weird. That was why Jim loved him.

“Right,” the cop replied, eyes flicking over to Victor. He was grinning at the policeman interviewing him, who was leaning as far back as he could without making it obvious that he desperately wanted to take a few steps back from Victor’s manic gaze. He _really_ had to stop antagonising people. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

So Jim recounted the events, rather enjoying the bewildered expression on the cop’s face when he told him how everything went down. Eventually there was nothing left for Jim to add, and the cop had run out of questions, so he thanked Jim for his time and then went to rescue his partner from Victor’s shark smile. They were both allowed to leave, and everyone gave them quite a wide berth as they exited the building and stood out on the freezing cold street.

Victor took Jim’s hand and gave him an earbud, the Spice Girls turned all the way up.

“Coffee?” he asked with a grin.

Jim sighed and leaned up to press a kiss to his beloved’s lips.

  
“Coffee.”

* * *

_Eleven Years Earlier  
_ _(Age 21)_

Jim ached.

He couldn’t – he couldn’t breathe.

Everything hurt.

Something was beeping in the distance and it was _annoying_.

It was cold. Jim was shivering. He couldn’t stop.

Voices in the distance. What were they saying? Where was he?

Oh, he was breathing. But it hurt. He was breathing too fast, and he couldn’t breathe, but he _was_ breathing. Too fast, not enough.

Warmth covering his body – a warm blanket. Soft. He wanted to sink into it.

A little prick of pain at his elbow, and his muscles relaxed. The shaking stopped. He could breathe normally again.

Where was he?

Where-

His father.

Where was his father?

There had been – lights. Headlights. Screeching. Something that sounded like an explosion too close. Metal crunching. Then- pain.

Someone that sounded an awful lot like Victor.

Where was he?

What happened?

_What happened?_

* * *

_Ten Years Earlier  
_ _(Age 22)_

Jim was out of breath by the time he ran into the GCPD precinct. He’d received a call from the cop working his father’s case, who was trying to figure out who had been behind the hit-and-run that killed Peter Gordon and nearly killed him. He was lucky he got away with the injuries that he had, and that none of them had been serious. All of the impact had been absorbed by his father’s side of the car.

Died on impact.

Detective Romero had apparently arrested the man who’d been driving the other car, and had some information for Jim. He’d dropped everything he’d been doing and caught a taxi to the precinct, but got out early and ran the last two blocks when the traffic was taking too long for his liking.

Sometimes he wished that Victor was with him.

And other times he was filled with rage that Victor had _abandoned_ him the same night that he’d lost his father. Just… up and left. Changed apartments, changed phone numbers. Never called, never texted, never to be seen again.

Nobody could tell Jim where Victor was. Only that he was alive, not dead like Jim had originally thought, because why else would Victor just drop off the map and completely ignore his boyfriend?

Jim could’ve used some emotional support in this situation, walking into the precinct, about to see the man who killed his father. Could’ve used someone to hold his hand, hold him back from ripping into the piece of shit who drove away like it was nothing, like he hadn’t ruined Jim’s entire fucking life all in one night.

Detective Romero met Jim at the entrance as soon as she saw him, and led him towards the interrogation rooms.

“You’ll be observing _only_ , Jim,” she instructed once they got there. “I know that this will be hard for you. I know that you’ll probably want revenge. Just know that we’ve got the fucker, and there’s nothing he can do to wiggle out of these charges. But you can’t do anything to compromise the interview. Alright?”

And as much as Jim wanted nothing more than to march into the room and strangle the man to death, he reluctantly agreed. He wouldn’t do anything that could even hint at letting this asshole walk free.

Romero shoved him into the observation room with another officer and-

There he was.

Sitting at the table, trying to look calm and collected but he couldn’t hide the sweat beading on his forehead. Some regular Joe that Jim could’ve passed multiple times walking down the street and not even recognise. This was the man who killed Jim’s father and upturned his life. This was the man responsible for _everything_.

The man just stared when Detective Romero entered the interrogation room and closed the door behind her, slamming a folder down onto the table.

“Alexander Caldwell,” she said, sitting down in front of the man. “Thirty-five, Gotham raised, got a rap sheet of petty misdemeanours. Private security – or whatever they’re calling it these days. I get the feeling that you aren’t the kind of upstanding guy who protects anyone good in this city if you don’t feel bad for killing Gotham’s DA.”

Caldwell swallowed shallowly and looked as Romero opened the folder in front of her. Looked at the photos she all but threw at him of Jim’s unconscious form and his father’s dead, broken body.

“You murdered Peter Gordon and put his son in critical condition,” she said. “And instead of staying at the scene to try and help, to get arrested for involuntary manslaughter with a maximum sentence of ten years, you run. You hide. You make yourself a wanted criminal and now I can slap you with manslaughter, evading arrest, and assault of an officer. Maybe even second degree murder.”

“It was an accident,” Caldwell all but blurted out. “I was scared. I didn’t want to lose my job, I was drunk.”

Romero raised her brows in disbelief.

“You want me to charge you for involuntary manslaughter _and_ driving under the influence? Even a drunk would know that turning themselves in and pleading guilty would get you a lighter sentence than what you did,” she replied, leaning forward over the table. “I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Caldwell said nothing.

“I think that a man in private security such as yourself would know better than to drive drunk in the first place, and I think you would know better than to run from something like this,” she continued. “ _Especially_ when it involved a man as high profile as Gotham’s DA.”

“What are you saying? That I did it on purpose?”

Detective Romero smirked.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mr. Caldwell,” she said. Jim jerked forward at that. “I think you’re too smart to be a drunk driver who runs from a case of manslaughter. I think that the company you work for is a front. I’ve done my research, and I’ve done some digging. I can’t find a single legitimate contract that your company has ever signed. I think that you work privately, but not for protection. I think you do exactly the opposite, Mr. Caldwell, and I think somebody hired you to take out Gotham’s DA when he refused to back down on a case that would’ve been very bad for Don Maroni.”

And- _fuck_.

Had Jim’s father really been working on a case like that? Something that could’ve gotten him killed? _Had_ his father been murdered on orders?

“You’re wrong,” Caldwell replied. “I was drunk. I was scared. I ran. That’s it.”

Leaning back in her chair, Detective Romero looked quite smug.

“So you’re happily admitting to me that you _did_ kill DA Peter Gordon now? You’re not denying it, in fact you’re being very vocal about your confession,” she all but drawled. “See, that’s what’s suspicious to me. Anyone else would be wiggling their way out of this with an alibi by now, or demanding to see their lawyer. You, on the other hand, are desperate for me to not think of any other reasoning for your actions. Which means you’re scared of what else I could discover. So I think that I’m right with my theory.”

Caldwell was visibly pale, a drop of sweat trailing down the side of his face.

“I wasn’t working for anyone,” he insisted, voice shaking. “I was drunk. I admit it. I’m guilty. I killed him. Just… arrest me now. Please.”

“That sounds less like a confession of a guilty conscience and more like a man hiding something,” Romero said, standing up and walking around to Caldwell, looming over him. “You know… I have plenty of reason to believe the private security firm you work for is a front. I’ve asked nearly everyone in this city with hired protection if they’ve heard of your firm, and the answer as been a solid no. Which leads me to believe that your company is contracted out to people on the wrong side of the law.”

She paused, and stared down at Caldwell without fear in her eyes, unlike him.

“I’ve got enough suspicion to get a warrant to look into your firm,” she continued. “And if I find anything that backs that up, I can have every single person that you work for and with arrested. Including the one who tasked you with killing Peter Gordon. I can have you all thrown in Blackgate, and how long do you think you’ll last in there when _you’re_ the one who got them all imprisoned in the first place, hm? A day? A week?

“But… if you tell me who you work for, who gave you the order to kill Peter Gordon, then I can have you placed in protective custody. The person who gave the orders will have to stick it out in Gen Pop, and you get a nice, cushy cell in protective custody for the time of your imprisonment. So my question to you, Caldwell…” she drawled, leaning in to his ear. “Is how long do you want to stay alive?”

The man in question swallowed thickly, and Jim was so close to the glass that his breath was fogging it up.

He thought that all he wanted was for this man to be caught, tried, and punished. But if it was true, and he was working on orders, then Jim wanted to see that person _suffer_. He wanted to see them stripped of everything they held dear and trapped in a tiny cell for the rest of their lives, without proper amenities, or anything they liked ever again. He wanted them to suffer in a stone building until the day they died for what they did to him and to his father.

Caldwell’s gaze wavered from where he was staring intently down at the table.

“You promise you can get me protective custody?” he all but whispered. Romero smirked.

“The best,” she promised.

“It better be,” Caldwell said, “because this guy is… unstoppable. Freakishly good. One of the best in this city, and if he has any opportunity to take me out he’ll do it without even blinking. He’s like… death, walking. If I’m going to give him up I need all the protection I can get.”

“You’ll have it,” she replied.

Caldwell closed his eyes and took a shaking breath.

Then he said a name that shattered Jim’s entire universe.

“His name is Zsasz,” the man said. “Victor Zsasz.”

* * *

_Present Day  
_ _Falcone Mansion_

Jim was led silently through the mansion until they came upon a drawing room, wherein Don Carmine Falcone was waiting patiently, going through some documents with a glass of whisky at his side. He looked surprised to see Jim enter the room, with Victor and his girls behind.

“Detective Gordon,” the man greeted, standing up from his seat, “somehow I expected that you would put up more of a fight. You’ve become quite a thorn in my side recently.”

“Good,” Jim replied. Falcone chuckled and walked around his desk towards Jim, waving him over to some plush seats on the other side of the room, placed in front of a crackling fire.

“I’m hoping that we might be able to talk civilly,” Falcone said, settling into his own seat. “I only sent Victor as a precaution – only a few short weeks you’ve been back in Gotham and already your reputation is spreading quickly.”

“Was the ziptie a necessary precaution too?” Jim asked, aware that his hands were still tightly bound near his lower back.

“Ah.” Falcone gestured to Victor, who came up behind him and sliced the ziptie open with a blade that came out of nowhere. Jim rubbed his wrists and sat down at the edge of his own seat, both feet flat on the ground in case he needed to move fast.

Jim stared over at Falcone. “So what do you want from me?” he asked. “A promise to not get involved in your affairs? Because that’s not going to happen.”

“James,” Falcone sighed. “You grew up in Gotham. You know that our city does not operate like others. There is a delicate balance to be maintained between the law and criminal syndicates. I would hate for something to happen to you because you did not understand it.”

The silent _like your father_ hung heavily in the room between them.

“What I _understand_ ,” Jim snarled, “is that good people in Gotham get killed, and bad people walk away without a scratch.”

“You’re talking about your father. I considered him to be a good friend of mine.”

Jim barked out a laugh. “Which is why you’ve hired the man who killed him, I’m sure,” he all but hissed.

And Jim’s father wasn’t the only person that Victor Zsasz had killed. He’d been the one to put a bullet through Detective Romero’s head when she’d come to arrest him, and had disappeared into the wind. The case against him had been miraculously dropped when the new detective who took up the case concluded it a drunk hit-and-run on Alexander Caldwell’s part, and Jim had slit his wrist in the precinct’s bathroom. He’d been unluckily found before he’d had time to get to the other one, and was rushed to Gotham General before he could do anything about it.

Upon recovery Jim had shaved his head and joined the Army, and the rest was history.

“Now, Jim, Victor is not to be blamed in this situation,” Falcone replied. “He was under contract from Don Maroni. If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at him. Your father knew the risk he was taking when he decided to take up the case against Salvatore, and he paid the price.”

Jim launched out of his seat, vision turning red as he threw himself at Falcone, only to be held back by strong, familiar arms around his throat and chest.

“Get the fuck off me!” he swore, trying to wriggle out of Victor’s grip. He had no leverage though, with his arms pinned to his sides and his airway dangerously close to being blocked off all together.

“Not until you agree to sit back down, Jim,” Victor said into his ear. “I can’t keep my promise if you don’t behave.”

“Fuck you!” Jim snapped, trying to headbutt Victor in the face without much luck. In response Victor simply got one of his girls to ziptie his hands together again, and shoved him back down into his seat with heavy hands on Jim’s shoulders. Jim bared his teeth and tried to throw Victor’s hands off him without much luck.

Falcone sighed and took a sip of his whisky.

“I had hoped you would be more amenable to the situation, James,” the man said. “But perhaps I was thinking far too highly of you. Just because I was friends with your father, that does not mean I will not hesitate to put you down if you become too much trouble.”

Victor’s hands spasmed on Jim’s shoulders.

“Sir, respectfully, I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Victor said haltingly. It was enough of a surprise that Jim stopped his struggling in order to stare at Falcone, who was watching Victor with a narrowed gaze.

“And why would that be, Victor?”

“Jim would be… a good asset for us to have against Maroni, should it come to that,” he replied. It didn’t sound very convincing, and it seemed that Falcone agreed.

“And this has nothing to do with your… personal feelings towards him, does it?”

They both froze at those words.

“Sir?”

Falcone huffed a laugh at Victor’s bewildered tone and took another sip of his whisky.

“I’m well aware of your previous relationship with Detective Gordon,” he revealed, and Jim’s blood ran cold. “Though granted on the terms with which it ended I wasn’t sure how sending you to retrieve him would turn out. Tell me you don’t still have feelings for him, Victor. He surely does not for you. Not after what you did to him.”

Victor’s hands tightened on Jim’s shoulders so hard they would surely leave bruises.

“Sir…” he warned.

“You ruined his life, Victor,” Falcone continued as though nobody had spoken. “You killed his father and abandoned him all on the same day. Is it any wonder he tried to take his own life after you did that? Never mind that you only took the contract in order to keep him safe. High school sweethearts turned enemies – poetic, is it not?”

Victor twitched at Falcone’s harsh words, but only some of them were echoing through Jim’s head on repeat like a ricocheted bullet.

_Never mind that you only took the contract in order to keep him safe_.

“What does that mean?” Jim asked, drawing Falcone’s attention back to him. “What do you mean about the contract?”

Falcone laughed.

“You think I didn’t hear about the hit? Maroni made it public knowledge that he wanted both the DA and his son dead. Victor took the contract at the young age of twenty-one on the grounds that you were not to be harmed,” Falcone said casually, as though the whole world hadn’t just flipped on its axis again. “It was sheer idiocy on Caldwell’s part that resulted in you being in the car that night. Victor was furious. He spent the better part of that year hunting him down, and came so close before the police caught up to him.”

The hands on Jim’s shoulders retracted like they’d been burned, and he turned to see Victor a few paces back, staring down at the floor with fists clenched so tightly they were shaking.

“Is that true?” Jim asked, surprised that his voice came out steady. Victor’s eyes flicked up to meet his gaze for less than a second before returning to the floor, but it was all Jim needed.

It was true.

He’d spent the past ten years believing that the love of his life had murdered his father in cold blood as some sort of statement to Jim. He’d thought that, somehow, all the time that he’d spent with Victor since they’d been made lab partners at age fifteen had been a lie. That Victor Zsasz only kept him around for warmth and sex but didn’t have an issue with damn near killing him.

And it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Victor had sacrificed his relationship with Jim to keep him safe, even if it meant killing his father and everything that was between them. He was willing to let Jim hate him for the rest of their lives to keep him safe.

The stupid idiot.

“On a related note,” Falcone suddenly piped up, catching both of their attentions, “I should remind you, James, that Victor works for me now. And he may be one of the best, but he is not by far the only contract killer I have in my employ.”

Jim understood the veiled threat very clearly, but Falcone clearly felt the urge to spell it out for him.

“So, should you not toe the line, James… I may find that I have no need for an employee with such a flaw in loyalties,” he continued. “And, well, I wouldn’t just be able to let him go and work with one of my enemies now, would I?”

And Victor looked a little betrayed at those words as Falcone stood up to button his suit jacket and drain the last of his whisky. Which was strange considering that in Victor’s world of criminals and assassins and mob bosses, trust and loyalty weren’t all too common. Maybe he’d been working with Falcone long enough that he thought he’d earned it.

Served him right for trusting men like that over Jim.

“I’ll leave you two to talk now, since I’m sure we won’t be having any more problems in the future, will we James?” Falcone asked pointedly. Jim, from where he was still sitting and bound, glared.

“No, we won’t,” he grit out between his teeth. Falcone smiled and clapped Victor on the shoulder, ignoring Victor’s instinctive flinch towards his knife.

“Victor, you’ll see Detective Gordon back to the precinct when you’re done, won’t you?” he asked. Before Victor could even answer, Falcone left the room, taking Victor’s girls with him, and the two of them were left alone.

Jim’s ex-boyfriend-turned-assassin stared at the ground and refused to look up. It was one of his tells, because Victor Zsasz was the type of man to look any situation in the eye, good or bad. He shied away from nothing no matter what – and here he was, refusing to even look in Jim’s direction.

He wanted to punch and kiss Victor in equal measures.

How are you meant to feel about the fact that the love of your life killed your father in order to keep you safe? When Jim had lost both of them in one fell swoop, he’d had nothing left in his life other than an inheritance he didn’t want and suicidal tendencies. And later on, seething hatred and betrayal.

Jim didn’t know what to do. So he did the only logical thing.

He decked Victor across the jaw and then shoved him against the wall so hard his head bounced off it.

And Victor didn’t fight back once, just let Jim pin him in place with blood from a split lip trailing down his chin. Like it wasn’t perfectly within Jim’s right to beat the shit out of him until he could barely stand. Like Jim hadn’t fantasized throughout the years of what exactly he’d do to Victor Zsasz once he got his hands on him.

But now looking into Victor’s eyes didn’t bring up the usual swell of overwhelming grief and fury. It just brought a whole bunch of confusing feelings that Jim couldn’t even begin to untangle.

“I’m not going to do this in Don Falcone’s house,” Jim eventually ground out between his teeth. “I can make my own way back.”

And with that, Jim let go of Victor and made his way out of the mansion.

He walked to the nearest main road and called himself a taxi, and tried his very best to not think about anything the whole way back to the precinct.

Upon arriving, the whole precinct went quiet as they stared at Jim. Maybe they didn’t expect him to come back. Or maybe they were wondering if he was now just as corrupt as them – and was he? Hadn’t he just technically made a deal with Don Falcone? After he’d refused to kill Oswald Cobblepot?

“Jim!” came Harvey’s voice from by Essen’s office. “What the hell, man?” He jogged over to Jim and wrapped an arm over his shoulders, dragging him back over to their desks, waving off anyone who tried to come near them.

“I thought you weren’t talking to me anymore,” Jim groused.

“Well I wasn’t until I heard that you _willingly_ walked off with Victor fucking Zsasz after you decided to get half a dozen arrest warrants for the Mayor and Don Falcone!” Harvey exclaimed, like that was anything different to Jim’s usual shit that he pulled. “You wanna tell me what that’s all about?”

Jim looked around at everyone in the precinct trying very hard to not appear to be eavesdropping, and sighed.

“Let’s talk about this where everyone can’t hear,” he said, pulling Harvey in the direction of the men’s locker rooms. The last time they’d been in there Harvey had tried to kill him, but Jim was really hoping that his partner had gotten over that. After all, Harvey had only been afraid for his own life after it was revealed that Cobblepot was alive.

Locking the door behind them, Jim slumped down heavily on one of the overnight cots, running a hand across his head. After a few seconds of silence, Harvey sat down opposite him and looked expectantly at Jim.

“Jim?” he prompted.

“Victor Zsasz is the man who killed my father,” Jim said. “He’s also my ex-boyfriend.”

That really threw Harvey for a loop, because he just blinked for a few moments before retrieving his flask and taking a long swig.

“You… dated Victor Zsasz?”

Jim nodded. “For five years. He was… all I had, other than my father. I was in love with him.”

“That doesn’t tell me _why_ you walked out of this precinct with him!” Harvey exploded, looking at Jim like he was a particularly stupid child – which, he kind of was. He didn’t really know why he’d left with Victor either, other than to avoid bloodshed, and also…

He rolled up his right sleeve to reveal the scar on his wrist.

“I think I mostly wanted to see the expression on his face when I told him that he was the reason for this,” he admitted under his breath. “I guess in some ways I’m still a pissed-off teenager wanting to hurt him as much as he hurt me.”

“I…” Harvey floundered, clearly not knowing what to say. “Jim…”

Jim laughed and shoved his sleeve back down, running both hands through his hair.

“And it’s funny, because it turns out that he did it to _protect me_ ,” he continued. “Falcone told me that Maroni put out an open contract, and Victor took it on the grounds that I be removed from it. Maroni wanted both my father and I dead. And Victor made sure that I would be safe. And then… he _left_ me.

“I don’t… I don’t know how to feel about it. How the fuck is anyone supposed to feel about a situation like this?”

Harvey was silent, before he passed his flask to Jim. He laughed and took a swig of it, hissing as the alcohol burned its way down his throat; it was a little stronger than what Jim was used to.

“Hell if I know, Jim,” Harvey eventually sighed. “Situation like that, I’d probably just drink to forget.”

“Been there, done that,” replied Jim. “Didn’t really do much help.”

“In any other situation I’d say talk it out, but this is Victor Zsasz. I don’t really think talking it out is his style.”

Jim huffed. “Used to be.”

In the end there was nothing either of them could do about the situation. They drank a little more before Harvey had to get back to work, and he insisted to Captain Essen that Jim needed to go home – there was no way he’d be able to work in the state he was in. Jim was inclined to argue on principle, but Essen took one look at him and sent him off after making sure he was alright.

It felt wrong going back to Barbara’s after everything, even if she was out of town, so Jim booked a last minute room in a shitty hotel and all but collapsed on the bed with a sigh.

He was too exhausted to be angry anymore, after all the emotional shit he’d been through, Jim was entirely drained. He wanted to sleep for fifteen hours and just have everything be magically better when he woke up. That was never going to happen, as evidenced by the sheer number of time he’d tried that before, but he ended up dozing anyway.

An unknown amount of time later, he was woken up by tapping on the window.

He was on the third floor, so there was only one person it could be. He ignored it.

A few moments later the latch flipped open, and someone slipped silently into the room. The figure couldn’t be heard over the soft sounds of the city that came through the open window, but Jim didn’t flinch when there was a sudden weight on the bed behind him, like someone took a seat at the edge of the mattress.

“What are you doing here?” he grumbled into his pillow.

“You said you didn’t want to do this at Don Falcone’s place,” came Victor’s reply. Jim groaned and rolled over with what little energy he had left to look up at Victor. He was still dressed in the same clothes he wore earlier, but his shoulder holster was noticeably empty. He was sitting entirely unobtrusively on the bed like he wasn’t Gotham’s most infamous assassin.

“Who said I wanted to do this here? Or now?”

“Because I know you, Jim,” Victor murmured. “You’ll let this eat you up inside for days.”

He laughed in response.

“Like it’s ever _stopped_ eating me up inside?”

Victor at least had the decency to look guilty at that. Jim sighed and hauled himself up until he was sitting up against the headboard, and brought one of his knees up to rest an elbow on. Entirely unbalanced, entirely vulnerable – unable to protect himself from this position should Victor try anything. He didn’t much care.

It was clearly something that Victor picked up on, because he swivelled around so he could sit cross-legged on the bed. They were both at a disadvantage.

It at least set the tone for the conversation.

“Why are you here, Victor?” Jim sighed. Victor shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I feel… bad. Like maybe I didn’t make the right decision when I left.” The statement made Jim hold back a mad, hysterical chuckle that surely would’ve sent him to Arkham had anyone heard it.

“Understatement of the century.”

Victor frowned and looked down to the bedspread. “I thought… you wouldn’t understand, if I explained it to you. I know you weren’t close with your father, but he was your only family. I took that from you. I couldn’t… pretend that everything would be okay after I did that. I couldn’t be around you and pretend that I hadn’t done it, but I couldn’t tell you either. You’d find out eventually. So I made a clean break.”

Sighing, Jim leaned back until his head thunked against the headboard.

“You lied to me for years, Victor,” he murmured. “You told me you were working private security with a legit firm. You told me you worked bank security. You said that the scars were a work accident, or a dare. And then you killed my father and you _left me_. Did you really think I’d come out of that okay?”

The assassin wordlessly reached out for Jim’s right hand, and pulled it towards him until Jim’s shirt rode up his arm to reveal the scar. He shivered when Victor ran his thumb over it.

“I didn’t think you’d…”

“Didn’t think I’d what?” Jim spat. “Try to kill myself? What the fuck did I have left to live for, Victor? The only two people I had in my life were gone, and I found out one of them betrayed me. Did you know I was thinking of asking you to marry me?”

Victor’s eyes shot up to Jim’s, wide and shocked.

“We didn’t even live together but I knew at some point I wanted to marry you,” Jim continued, enjoying having something to hold over Victor. “I was so in love with you. I wanted to spend every single day of my life with you. If you’d told me then what you really did, that the scars on your arm were to mark off the people you’d killed, I probably wouldn’t have cared. You were _everything_ to me. And you _left._ ”

Quicker than Jim could track, Victor was moving. He flinched, expecting some sort of attack on instinct, but instead-

Victor’s arms were wrapped around him, the assassin’s head was buried into his shoulder, and he was – crying?

Victor Zsasz had never, _ever_ cried.

Jim’s arms automatically went around the assassin, which made Victor’s grip on the back of his shirt tighten, to the point where Jim’s shirt was getting a little painfully uncomfortable, but he didn’t say anything – mostly due to shock, but also because Victor was _crying_. It took a few moments for Jim to realise that he had Victor back in his arms again, for the first time in ten years. It was something he’d dreamed about on his weaker nights out on tour, sleeping in a shitty tent in the middle of nowhere.

Just dreamed that everything was okay, and he had Victor, and everything was fine.

By the time that Victor pulled away his eyes were red and there was a single tear streak down his face. Victor wiped at it and looked just as bewildered as Jim felt.

“Weird,” he murmured, and Jim couldn’t help but snort out a laugh.

It was like a dream, being able to wipe tears from Victor’s cheeks, to hold him in his arms again and to not feel the overwhelming anger and grief that usually overtook him at the thought of his first love. It was still there, and everything was all muddled up, but…

When he took his own point of view away, and just looked at it from the other, Victor had sacrificed everything to keep Jim safe. If it had been the other way around, Jim didn’t know if he’d be able to do what Victor had done.

“I’m sorry,” Victor eventually breathed out. “I never wanted you to get hurt. This is all because of me.”

And… Jim found himself disagreeing with that statement.

“Victor, if you hadn’t taken the contract yourself, I’d be dead,” he replied, forcing Victor’s chin up so they looked each other in the eye. “You saved me. I didn’t understand that until today. I still think you’re a total asshole for leaving, but you’ve never made great impulsive decisions.”

Victor let out a wet laugh.

“You’re right about that.”

For a few moments they just looked at each other. The love that Jim thought had died with his father was slowly bubbling it’s way back to the surface, and he found it difficult to do anything but just _stare_. Victor’s hand came up to wrap around Jim’s wrist, brushing his scar, and then he remembered.

Scars.

He reversed their grip and pulled up Victor’s cuff just far enough to see two sets of tally marks on his wrist, one of them incomplete.

“How many do you have now?” he asked, looking at the jagged scars.

“…Eighty-five,” Victor admitted. “Would be eighty-six but I never knew whether I should’ve counted him as one of them.”

Neither of them had to clarify who Victor was talking about.

“Is that the reason you didn’t do it yourself?” Jim asked, voice hushed in the near-silent room.

“One of them,” replied Victor. “Another part of me just didn’t know if I could. I’m not… I’m not a good person, Jim. I never have been. I enjoy killing. I like it. I like the hunt, and the chase, and getting it done. The only good thing about me has only ever been you and I didn’t… want to taint you with that. I didn’t want you to have to bear the guilt of my kills. That’s why I never told you.”

And it was difficult – because ten years ago Jim could probably have ignored what Victor did. But time passed, and he’d been to war, and he’d seen innocent people die at the hands of others. He’d come back and gone through the Academy, and witnessed good cops get gunned down for no reason. Seen innocents murdered with barely a thought.

He couldn’t ignore what Victor was now.

“I’d ask if you could spare innocents, but you won’t do that, will you?” Jim asked.

“If I don’t do it, someone else will,” Victor replied. “And a lot of the time they’ll be a lot slower and meaner about it. At least with me it’s quick. That’s what happens when you live in Gotham – doesn’t matter who you are, everyone knows the risk. People who aren’t prepared to pay the price can leave.”

“But they shouldn’t _have_ to,” sighed Jim, running a finger over Victor’s scars. “That’s why I came back. Innocent, good people shouldn’t have to be scared of going to buy bread, or going out for dinner. Kids like Bruce Wayne shouldn’t have to watch his parents killed in front of him.”

Victor hummed.

“His dad was involved in some shady shit,” Victor mused absently. “Everyone knew it. Wasn’t a shock when the two of them got popped. Wayne Enterprises has its fingers in a lot of pies.”

“What pies?”

Victor opened his mouth to answer, but then shut it with a smirk.

“Are you interrogating me, Detective Gordon?” he asked with that same twinkle in his eye he used to get as a teenager. “Because I can think of more persuasive methods…”

Jim had to put a hand on Victor’s chest to stop him from leaning in any further.

“That’s not gonna work, especially when I only stopped wanting to kill you earlier today. Jury’s still out on whether I hate your guts right now. Don’t push your luck.” Victor pouted at his words and sat back properly.

“How about a kiss?” he asked.

There were a thousand reasons for Jim not to do that – Barbara for one, his father for two. And yet…

He leaned forward, tilted his head a little, and his lips settled into place against Victor’s. The lips he’d known the longest, the first pair to ever touch his. It felt something like coming home, and Jim didn’t resist when Victor reached out to oh so gently bring his hand to the nape of Jim’s neck. Holding him in place, but softly, with a desperation that belied his casual attitude.

Jim should have pulled back after a few seconds, but didn’t, and had to hold the moan in his chest that threatened to escape when Victor parted his lips and bit down on the lower, then soothed over it with his tongue. He inadvertently shot a hand out to Victor’s thigh for purchase and squeezed when the assassin deepened the kiss, tightening his grip on Jim’s hair.

It was perfect, and it was exactly where Jim wanted to be, confusing situation and emotions be damned. He had never stopped missing the quiet moments he and Victor had shared in their youth together, the nights spent kissing beneath the sheets.

He was brought back to his senses when Victor’s lips parted from his and started to make their way across his jaw and down his neck.

“Victor, stop,” he ordered, voice sounding a little breathier than intended. And Victor Zsasz had always been perfect at following orders, no matter how reluctant, and pulled back with a sigh. “I’m sorry, but I- I can’t-“

“I get it.”

Jim blinked. “What?”

“You’ve got a girl now, and you’re a cop and I’m a killer,” Victor replied, reluctantly pulling back until they were barely touching. “That’s complicated enough without our history on top of that.”

“You’re right, I need time to work through this,” Jim admitted. But he also leaned over to press a soft kiss to Victor’s lips. “But… you were my first love. Maybe you still are. Don’t go anywhere yet?”

Victor stared at him with a blank expression for a few moments, the one he always got when he was working through a decision. Then he smile, wide and shark-like, and launched himself onto the bed to lie spread-eagle, tugging Jim down against him.

“Sounds good to me,” he smiled, and pressed a kiss to Jim’s temple.

* * *

_Three Months Later  
_ _(Abandoned Factory)_

They were barricaded behind a bunch of old crates and barrels, which wasn’t really the ideal situation when it came to cover, but it was all they had. Harvey was swearing his head off and counting his bullets, and Jim had desperately texted for backup.

“So much for this being simple or easy,” Harvey groused, waiting for a pause in the barrage so he could return fire.

“Sorry,” Jim replied, not feeling apologetic at all. It wasn’t his fault that they’d been told their suspect would be alone and instead had somehow managed to hole up with what seemed like an _entire_ gang. In the middle of nowhere. With crates of weaponry at their disposal.

“You’re gonna be feeling more sorry when we’re _dead_ , Jim!” Harvey yelled, peeking out of cover to fire a few shots. There was a pained scream, followed by more gunfire that had Harvey ducking back into cover with a good few swear words.

Jim decided to follow suit and popped out of cover, aiming for centre mass, and knocking down two of the gang members, before he was forced to retreat back behind their makeshift barricade, which was getting less secure by the minute. Old wood and metal weren’t meant to hold up to this much gunfire.

“You’re the one who followed me into this, Harv,” Jim replied, checking his magazine. “I distinctly remember telling you that I could handle it alone, but you wanted to come along for _fun_ and to pick up a sandwich on the way back to the precinct.”

Harvey rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. “That sandwich might be worth taking a bullet or two,” he retorted. “You, though? Nah.”

Jim laughed and reloaded his gun, and returned fire. One more down.

There was a sudden noise outside that was only just audible over the sound of bullets ricocheting around the warehouse – a car screeching to a stop, followed by a door slamming shut.

“Backup’s here,” Jim said to Harvey. They were both down to their last magazines, and probably wouldn’t have survived much longer.

At that moment, the warehouse door burst open and Victor Zsasz walked in with a military-grade rifle in each hand. The gunfire stopped for a moment due to the sheer unexpectedness of his arrival.

“Your backup is _Victor Zsasz_?” Harvey shouted incredulously as the assassin opened fire. The two of them watched in awe as Victor mowed down as many of the gang members as he could with the element of surprise, before ducking behind the nearest cover. Then his semi-automatics slid across the floor from his cover to stop at Jim and Harvey’s feet.

“Thanks,” Jim called out, swiftly yanking the gun into his arms. He checked the safety, and then popped out of cover to lay down suppressive fire to let Victor get a little closer. Harvey did the same, and within seconds the gang members were dropping like flies. There were only a few left by the time they both ran out of rounds, but Victor was ready, and soon all of the criminals were dead or incapacitated.

When the silence dragged on long enough to insure that none of the gang members were going to get back up, Jim got to his feet with a groan, and helped Harvey off the floor.

“Hi Jim,” came Victor’s lilting voice. He and Harvey turned to see Victor had re-holstered his weapons, smiling unobtrusively over to them like they hadn’t just been in the craziest shootout Gotham had seen in a while.

“Hey, Vic,” Jim smiled, walking over to the assassin. “Thanks for coming by.”

“Not a problem, my schedule was pretty empty today anyway,” Victor fired back with a cheeky grin. When Jim got close enough he pressed a kiss to Jim’s cheek, smiling wider at the blush that followed. “You okay?”

“Just a few bruises, nothing major.”

“Good,” said Victor, looking Jim up and down with furrowed brows as if double-checking. “D’you need me to handle those guys?”

The assassin jabbed a thumb over to the group of dead or dying gang members riddled with bullets, and Jim turned to Harvey with an unsure expression on his face.

“You wanna do the paperwork for all that?” he asked his partner, who was watching them with an incredulous gaze.

“Not particularly,” Harvey replied. “You two back together now or what?”

“It’s… complicated. We’re working on it.”

“And what about Barbara?”

“I like her,” shrugged Victor. “I don’t mind sharing. She gets weekdays and I get weekends, it’s like shared custody. She’s gonna be pissed that I got to see you today.”

Jim rolled his eyes at that. “She’d be more pissed if I came home riddled with bullets and breathing a lot less than I was this morning,” he said. “Besides, she can’t complain about us when she’s with Montoya too. It all works out in the end.”

“You guys are so weird,” sighed Harvey, looking like he wanted a drink or two. “How’re you gonna deal with the bodies, Zsasz?”

Victor looked around the warehouse, assessing.

“Probably just blow the place, to be honest,” he admitted. Jim blinked, and then took a deep breath.

“Victor, I’m not letting you blow up a building.”

“It’s not even an important building! Just… one little explosion. Please?”

“ _No._ That’s destruction of property and arson.”

“You literally just called me in as backup to kill a bunch of goons. Shouldn’t you be arresting me for that as well?”

“That’s self defence. Blowing up a building is different.”

Harvey let out a loud, echoing groan that interrupted their debate, and said, “If you two are gonna be disgusting lovebirds, I’m gonna wait out by the car and not be forced to watch this weirdness. Just… deal with it, please? And I’m not just talking about the bodies, I’m also talking about your issues.”

“Nice to see you too, Bullock!” Victor called out to his retreating form, chuckling as Harvey raised a single finger in response.

“I’m not letting you blow up a building.”

“Ugh,” Victor groaned. “You’re boring.”

“No, I just know better than to let you near any amount of explosives.”

Pulling out the best weapon in his arsenal (and that was saying a lot, considering that Victor Zsasz owned quite a few different and fun types of rocket launcher), Victor grabbed Jim by the tie and hauled him in to a kiss.

  
Despite the fact that they were in an abandoned warehouse surrounded by dead bodies with his partner waiting outside, Jim sighed and melted into the kiss. By the time they parted he was panting, and Victor had worked a hand under Jim’s partially untucked shirt to rest against his lower back.

“Please?” Victor asked.

“You aren’t bribing me into letting you blow up this building, Victor,” Jim sighed. “But…”

Victor’s eyes lit up with anticipation.

“I will let you light a _contained_ fire,” Jim finished, a little terrified at Victor’s glee at the prospect. “So I’m going to get out of here now, and I’d better not be hearing anything about a wildfire ravaging this part of the city, got it?”

With a smirk, Victor shot off a perky salute. “Yes, sir!”

Jim leaned in and pressed another kiss to Victor’s lips.

“See you tomorrow night?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe my one (1) experience at a gun range finally helped me out. Amazing.
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed :)


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